Tempus (5 page)

I was startled awake by the sound of a door slamming.

I opened my eyes and blinked at the shadows around me, trying to figure out where I was.  I pushed myself up slowly, realizing I was lying on the porch swing—the last place I remember being.  I heard the back door creak and realized Dad must be home.  How long had I been asleep?  I looked at my arm—no watch.  I began to remember as the fog in my head cleared.

“Dad,” I croaked through my dry throat, “
I’m back here
.”

My droopy eyes snapped open, and there was the mirror, just as I had been dreaming.  Had I been dreaming?  I couldn’t remember for sure.  Pictures flickered in my mind, but some of them seemed like memories more than dreams. 

Other pictures seemed more like memories
of
a dream.  I remember watching some show once that said the brain doesn’t know the difference between dreams and reality, it reacts the same to both, which is why you can cry real tears in your sleep, or talk and walk.  The conscience is what knows the difference or something like that, I think.

“Jessie?”

“Here, Dad.  On the porch.”

Dad came around the side of our big wrap-around porch.  His face had a worried look for a moment, and then he smiled.  “I tried to call a few minutes ago and you didn’t answer the phone.  I got a little worried so I came home.  I thought you might be sleeping.”  He stared into my sleepy eyes.  “Guess I was right.”

“What time is it?”  I asked through a yawn.

“Five-thirty,” he answered as he walked over and sat down beside me, suspiciously eyeing first me, then the mirror.  “I see you cleaned your mirror.”

The look on his face cleared my head a little more, and I realized how I must look.  I was dressed up, for
me
at least, and the mascara I had on was probably all under my eyes right now making me look raccoon-ish.  The once filthy mirror was spotless. 

“If you wanted a day off, you could have just asked.  I know it’s your last summer before,” he paused, his voice sounding sad, “before you graduate and go away to college.  I know it seems like all you do is work, and I’m sorry.  I’m going to hire someone else when school starts, give you more time to enjoy your friends, do things you should have been getting to do before now.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that.  I loved my dad very much, and he always tried to do his best for me.  I knew that every decision he made was because he loved me, but I also knew my dad was afraid.  He was afraid of being alone, but even more than that, he was afraid of losing me.  Maybe those weren’t the right words; maybe afraid of not being able to ‘watch out’ for me would be better words.

“You don’t have to do that, Dad.  I love working at the store.  It’s
genetic
.”  I gave him a smile with teeth.

“You are so much like your mom.”  His voice wavered a little on the last word, and I pretended not to notice.  “What say we get this mirror up to your room and see how it looks?  You
must
love it to sneak a day off just to clean it.”

He was already up and walking toward the mirror before he could see the look on my face.  It probably would have surprised him, and not in a good way.  I don’t know what it looked like, but it
felt
like it wasn’t good.

As my dad hoisted the mirror, I opened and held the back door, watching silently as
it
invaded my home.  Through the mudroom, through the kitchen, through the dining room it traveled, peeking at me over my dad’s shoulder.  Three flights of stairs and a door later, there it was, in the corner of my room, looking at all my things.

“I’m going to shower and call in pizza, that okay with you?”  Dad was already standing at my door, poised to escape.  He didn’t come to the third floor often; it was just too hard on him.

“Sounds perfect.”  I said as I turned to face him.  “Thank you for the mirror, I
do
love it.  It’s
exactly
what I wanted.”

Dad beamed, and the smile reached his eyes.  I would do almost anything to see him
really
happy.  I decided right that second I would love that mirror no matter what, so as his footsteps faded down the stairs, I turned to the object in question. 

“Truce?”  But there was no reply.

I stood in front of the mirror.  I could almost see something on the other side, misty looking, but with form.  My hands were gripping it so tight my knuckles were turning white and I was straining my eyes, trying to see, willing the misty shape to become solid.  Behind the shape, I could clearly see what looked like a clothing store, a fancy place for gentlemen.  There was a sign with words, but I couldn’t make them out.  I was getting angry.

“Just let me see you!  Just let me know if you are
real
!”  I shouted at the mirror.  “I
know
you’re in there!”

The shape became the boy.  His eyes crystal blue, just as I remembered, and ringed by long dark lashes.  His hair, black as coal, falling softly over his forehead.  His skin looked so smooth, almost luminous.  I tried to memorize his face before it disappeared again. 

The clothing caught my attention then.  It wasn’t a black shirt he had been smoothing, it was a vest.  The pants were—what were they called?  Peg top trousers?  My mind raced, trying to recall a time period.  White shirt and cuffs, vest, trousers.  I hurriedly looked at the shoes. 
Oxfords
.  The clothing in the background, all similar in style.  Furnishings, furnishings, furnishings—1900’s. 
Early
1900’s.

My heart sank. 

I looked up slowly, and he still stood there, letting me inspect him.  That’s what it seemed like, at least.  His eyes followed my movements, as if he were watching, as if he could see me.  He couldn’t.  I knew that now.  There was a century between us, and I suddenly
hated
my glimpses.  I hoped I never had another.

“I wish you were real,” I said to the boy in the mirror.

He smiled a beautiful smile and whispered.  “I am.”

I sat straight up in my bed, the echo of his voice still in my ears, the sadness following me from my dream.  My heart was pounding, my breath was ragged, my eyes were wide open, and, though I knew it had been a dream, I recognized the truth in it.  The clothing.  I hadn’t
dreamed
that, I simply remembered it in my dream.  A
century
!

I turned and looked at the mirror across the room.  The glass appeared to glow in the moonlight from my window.  It looked magical,
almost
.  It also looked different. 

When I first saw it, it was a beautiful mirror for my room, so perfect for me it seemed made-to-order.  The chance of it being the one object to hold a glimpse that could glimpse me back—
maybe
.  Now, it was a book with missing pages.  The best book I had ever picked up, and could never read.  Perhaps I would start wearing gloves at work.

Three a.m.  I thought of the oil lamp and the beautiful lady on the stairs, the beautiful lady with the handsome husband reflected in the—mirror.  Three a.m.  Too early to get up, but I didn’t think I could go back to sleep.  My eyes kept returning to the mirror.

One last look couldn’t hurt.  I knew it was stupid.  I knew it was a waste of time.  But what if it wasn’t?  What
if
?

I jumped out of bed, headed straight to the mirror, and grabbed it like I meant to shake it into compliance.  I saw the room the instant my hands touched it.  A library? 

I could see bookshelves everywhere and a desk across the room at an angle.  It was dark and I couldn’t see any real details.  Faint light came from a window somewhere to the left.  My eyes searched rapidly since I didn’t know how long the glimpse would last. 

An office?  Papers on the desk.  Books stacked on the corner, one open in the middle.  A globe.  That was all I saw.  The glimpse didn’t stop, it slowly faded out.  That was another first.

I plopped down on the floor in front of the mirror.  That wasn’t the background from before. 
Nothing
looked the same as before.  The time period looked like it was probably the same, based on what I could see.  It could also have been a later room, furnished with antiques.  My eyes had been searching for anything out of place, or should I say out of
time
.  I had noticed nothing that appeared newer than the early nineteen hundreds.

There was something special about this mirror—I could just
feel
it.  That idea made my earlier sadness a little easier to handle.  Maybe it
was
one of those rare items that would allow me multiple glimpses! 

I jumped to my feet and hurried into my little library.  I slid open the roll-top, pulled out my old notebook and a pencil, and rushed back to my room.  Sitting on my floor with the notebook in my lap, I flipped to the last entry.  I ignored the date, turned to a new page, and began to write and draw as fast as I could.  I had been documenting some of my more memorable glimpses—
some
—but I hadn’t done it in a while.

I started with the basic information on the mirror, and included a sketch of it; I also made a rudimentary diagram of the room and the things I remembered.  Then I decided to do a sketch of the boy, including his clothing.  I started with a simple line drawing to get the shapes and sizes correct, but as I commonly did, I got carried away.  I loved to draw, and I was good at it.

As my pencil moved on the paper, his face took on dimension.  I shaded the hollow below his cheekbone, blending with the tip of my finger.  The deep shadow below his angular jaw line brought his face into sharper focus.  The dark hair framed his beautiful face.  The bow shape of his upper lip, and the fullness of the lower, came to life on the paper.

I began to work on the eyes, concentrating on giving him that look of curiosity I remembered.  The long, full, dark lashes, the eyebrows, slightly raised.  I worked intently until the entire face was finished, and then held it out in the moonlight to admire.  A masterpiece.  Not my lowly work, that
face
!

Colored pencils!  I had tons and tons of colored pencils!  I was off in nearly a run to retrieve the blues, every shade of blue I possessed!  I switched on the light as I returned to my room, ‘
The better to see you with, my dear
,’ I thought.  I filtered through them hurriedly until I found the ones I wanted. 

I  erased the darkness of the graphite and began to work with the deepest blue, first heavily around the edges of the iris, then softer toward the pupil, changing the pressures of each stroke.  I grabbed the second pencil—light cerulean blue—and worked with the middle area of the iris, defining the tiny muscles.  I decided on the Deco Aqua for the lightest part of the center, with a few flecks of the color here and there near the outer edges to give them sparkle and depth.  Black for the pupil, with a couple of tiny areas left white from imaginary light, and
Voilà
!

I held the picture away from me again, anxious to see the results.  He was
gorgeous
.  Part of me felt a bit mental for the way I was thinking about him, but another part of me didn’t care at all. 
That
part of me enjoyed stupid historical romance novels, imagined myself as the heroine in every one of them, and no matter the authors description of the hero, he always had a face like this.  I already knew every hero hereafter would have this face
exactly
.

I’d only meant to document what I’d seen. 
So much for intentions
.  I checked the time again and it was already five a.m.  I knew I’d better try to get a little more sleep before my alarm went off.  I carried my notebook to bed with me and propped it against one of my pillows so I could look at it while I fell asleep.  I decided that tomorrow I would get out my sketchpad and draw a
proper
portrait, maybe something life-sized.  I imagined the look I would draw on his face while I slowly drifted off to sleep.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

—Albert Einstein

As soon as my eyes closed, my alarm sounded.  I was certain I couldn’t have been asleep
that
long; I hadn’t even had time to dream.  I slapped the annoying clock on its top and rubbed my eyes while yawning, stretching, and making old-people noises.  You know the ones, “ooooohhhh,  errrrrrrrrr, aaaaaaaah.”  I pointed my toes, arched my back, stretched my arms above my head, and yawned and yawned and
yawned
. 

As I lowered my arms, my right elbow brushed the notebook.  I looked at that beautiful face and gave it a smile, “Good morning, sleep well?” Who cares if I looked stupid, nobody could see me anyway.

I slid out of bed, found some clean clothes, and padded to the bathroom to brush my teeth and bathe.  When I returned to my room, I made up my bed and decided to stash my notebook under my pillow instead of taking it back to my library.  I hurried down to the kitchen for breakfast, expecting to find my dad waiting for me, as usual.  Instead, there was a small, wrapped box on the table with a note beside it.

      I grabbed the note first and unfolded it.